George  Washington  Flowers 
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ESTABLISHED  BY  THE 
FAMILY  OF 
COLONEL  FLOWERS 


ANTI-CHRISTIAN 
SOCIOLOGY 

AS  TAUGHT  IN 

The  Journal  of  Social  Forces 

PRESENTING 

A  Question  For  North  Carolina 
Christians 


>i  BY  REV.  WILLIAM  P.  McCORKLE 


(Revised  Edition) 


''Our  great  commonwealth  is  the  child  of  Christianity; 
it  may  with  equal  truth  be  asserted  that  modern  civiliza- 
tion sprang  into  life  with  our  religion;  and  faith  in  its 
principles  is  the  life-bo'at  on  which  humanity  has  at  divers 
times  escaped  the  most  threatening  perils. ' ' — Bancroft. 


BURLINGTON,  N.  C. 


Published  For  The  Author  By  >: 

[♦I 

A.  D.  PATE  &  CO.,  Printers 


FOREWORD 


The  writer  some  months  ago  called  attention  to  the 
agnostic  and  materialistic  positions  assumed  by  two 
northern  writers  in  their  papers  published  in  the  January 
number  of  the  Journal  of  Social  Forces.  The  "Jour^"^3.r'  is 
a  sociological  magazine  published  under  the  auspices  of  the 
Xfniversity  of  North  Carolina.  Protests  against  the  purvey- 
ing of  such  anti-christian  sentiment  in  university  publica- 
tions were  elicited  from  two  associations  of  ministers  of  all 
denominations,  and  from  two  Presbyteries  of  the  Synod  of 
North  Carolina.  Further,  in  an  article  in  the  Charlotte  Sun- 
day Observer,  he  reviewed  the  paper  of  Judge  R.  W.  Win- 
ston, which  appeared  in  the  November  (1924)  number  of  the 
magazine,  and  was  entitled,  ''The  Noose  of  Darwin  and  the 
Neck  of  Orthodoxy."  He  brought  out  two  facts — that  Judge 
Winston  declared  in  sympathy  with  Ingersoll,  that  "ortho- 
doxy must  accept  evolution  or  else  plant  itself  upon  the 
miraculous,  the  impossible,"  and  that  science  had  left  of  the 
whole  Bible  only  ''the  four  gospels  and  the  epistles  of  Paul," 
— all  the  rest,  the  Judge  would  have  us  understand,  having 
"been  finally  and  hopelessly  discredited.  A  synopsis  of  the 
Judge's  article  will  accompany  this  pamphlet. 

The  writer  is  a  friend  of  the  University.  As  a  North 
Carolinian  by  adoption,  having  spent  some  twenty-six  years 
of  his  ministry  in  this  State;  as  one  whose  home  is  in 
North  Carolina ;  and  above  all,  as  a  believer  in  the 
Christian  revelation,  he  is  interested  in  all  that  concerns  our 
great  State.  He  is  proud  of  our  great  University — of  its 
high  standing,  of  its  honorable  record,  of  its  phenomenal 
growth,  of  its  past  and  potential  usefulness,  and  of  the  high 
personal  character  of  its  faculty.  He  believes  that  the 
highest  interests  of  the  University  will  be  conserved  and 
promoted  by  such  united  and  determined  action  on  the  part 
of  its  faculty,  alumni  and  trustees,  and  by  the  people  of  the 
State,  as  shall  make  it  certain  that  the  University  shall  stand 
true  for  all  time  to  the  Christian  religion.  He  does  not  be- 
lieve that  anything  could  be  more  harmful  to  the  University, 


either  as  to  its  esprit  du  corps  or  as  to  its  reputation  among 
Christian  people  within  and  without  our  State,  than  the 
policy  heretofore  pursued  by  the  editors  of  the  Journal  of 
Social  Forces — that  of  permitting  their  magazine  to  be  used 
by  others  as  a  medium  for  the  dissemination  of  anti-chris- 
tian,  agnostic,  materialistic  and  socialistic  views. 

This  is  no  question  of  "academic  freedom,"  much  less  of 
"freedom  of  conscience."  Gentlemen  unconnected  with  the 
University  have  an  unquestioned  right  to  publish  anything 
they  please,  provided  only  it  does  not  violate  the  laws  of  the 
State  and  of  the  nation.  But  from  its  beginning  the  Uni- 
versity of  North  Carolina  has  stood  for  the  Christian  religion 
— not  for  any  particular  sect  or  faction  of  Christians,  but  for 
the  Christian  religion  in  its  broad,  inclusive  aspect,  as  im- 
plying faith  in  God,  faith  in  the  Bible  as  a  divine  revelation, 
and  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the  Divine  Savior  of  the  world. 
In  the  infancy  of  the  institution  a,  professor  was  discharged 
because,  being  a  disciple  of  Thomas  Paine,  he  went  so  far 
as  to  advocate  the  views  of  Paine  and  to  deny  the  divine- 
authority  of  the  moral  law  as  revealed  in  the  Scriptures. 
vShould  a  professor  in  any  of  our  State  schools  announce 
himself  an  agnostic,  and  claim  the  right  to  advocate  agnos- 
ticism in  public  address  or  through  the  public  prints,  it  is 
probable  that  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  trustees  of  that 
school  would  now  proceed  as  the  Trustees  of  the  University 
did  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago.  Believing  that  the 
welfare  of  the  State  and  of  the  University  was  bound  up 
in  the  stand  they  should  take  in  behalf  of  the  Bible,  and  of 
the  morality  which  inculcates,  they  dismissed  the  infidel 
professor. 

Editors  are  responsible  for  the  policy  and  tone  of  their 
publications.  If  any  article  slandering  a  citizen  of  North 
Carolina  should  appear  in  a  University  publication,  even  if 
v/ritten  by  some  one  not  connected  with  the  University,  the 
editors  would  be  held  responsible  under  the  law  for  publish- 
ing the  slander,  as  the  slanderer  would  be  held  responsible 
for  writing  and  printing  it.  "Qui  facit  per  alium  facit  per  se." 
When,  therefore,  any  journal  published  by  the  University, 
and  edited  by  professors  or  students,  gives  currency  to  at- 
tacks oh  the   Christian  religion,  arguments  against  the 


2 


Christian  revelation,  against  the  sanctity  of  the  moral  law 
revealed  in  the  Scriptures,  against  the  immortality  of  the 
soul,  etc.,  such  a  ])olicy  ought  to  be  condemned  alike  by  the 
faculty  and  alumni  of  the  University,  by  the  trustees,  and 
by  the  Christian  public,  and  such  practice  should  be  stopped 
by  the  proper  authorities. 

Professors  in  our  State  schools  are  under  solemn  obliga- 
tion to  keep  faith  with  the  Christian  public  whose  employees 
they  are.  Ours  is  a  Christian  commonwealth.  Our  Uni- 
versity is  a  Christian  institution.  Further,  if  there  be  a 
division  among  Christians — as,  for  instance,  between 
''modernists"  and  ''fundamentalists" — the  University  must 
stand  for  Christianity  without  allowing  itself  to  become  em- 
broiled in  a  factional  ccnitest  between  two  Christian  parties. 
Just  as  in  politics  the  University  has  no  policy  save  to  stand 
for  honesty  and  patriotism,  so  in  its  religious  policy,  it 
seems  to  me,  the  University  should  stand  for  Bible  Chris- 
tianity in  its  historic  sense,  without  lending  its  influence 
to  the  aid  of  a  faction  or  a  sect.  And  if  it  should  oppose 
anything,  publicly  and  officially,  alike  in  the  public  utter- 
ances of  its  faculty  and  in  the  publications  issued  under  its 
imprimatur,  it  ought  to  stand  outright  for  Christianity  as 
against  infidelity  in  all  its  forms. 


Wm.  P.  McCorkle. 


Burlington,  N.  C. 


3 


ANTI-CHRISTIAN  SOCIOLOGY 


I.— AN  AMBITIOUS  SCIENCE 

Sociology  is  the  science  of  human  society.  Hence  it 
embraces  all  that  history  which  has  to  do  with  the  orig'in 
and  development  of  social  customs,  of  moral  ideas,  and  of 
government.  Since  religion  is  among  those  ^'social  forces" 
v/hich  have  had  much  to  do  in  the  past,  and  will  have  much 
to  do  in  the  future  with  the  development  of  human  society, 
it  becomes  in  part  the  province  of  sociology  (?)  to  study 
the  origins  of  religious  doctrines  and  practices,  as  bearing 
upon  the  history  of  society,  and  as  explaining  much  that 
exists  today.  It  is  of  prime  importance,  therefore,  that  the 
aproach  to  the  study  of  religion  from  the  sociological  point 
of  view  should  be  sympathetic,  and  if  the  teacher  and 
authors  of  text-books  are  Christians,  there  will  be  no 
attempt  to  discredit  and  set  aside  the  Christian  revelation  in 
the  name  of  science.  If  the  subject  is  approached  in  a 
skeptical,  unfriendly  spirit,  as  regards  Christianity,  the  pro- 
fessor of  sociology  becomes,  ipso  facto,  an  apostle  of  unbe- 
lief, the  class  in  sociology  a  school  of  infidelity,  and  the 
text-books  and  periodicals  used  as  auxiliary  to  the  course 
the  seed  and  stimuli  of  Ingersollism. 

The  Christian  revelation  assumes  the  existence  of  God 
as  the  necessary  basis  of  all  being.  Its  first  announcement 
is  the  fact  of  the  creation  of  the  universe  by  God  Himself. 
The  religion  of  Christ  founds  upon  the  truth  of  this  fact. 
Further,  it  declares  the  fact  of  a  divine  revelation  in  the 
infancy  of  the  human  race,  and  a  progressive  revelation 
through  prophets  during  the  ages  afterward,  until  that 
revelation  culminated  in  the  birth,  character,  life,  teachings, 
miracles,  death,  resurrection  and  ascension  of  Christ.  In 
His  life,  miracles,  sayings,  death  and  resurrection,  the  apos- 
tles found  their  gospel.  It  was  none  other  than  the  gospel 
of  Jesus.  They  added  no  new  doctrines  to  those  which  He 
proclaimed,  required  no  faith  or  obedience  which  He  had 
not  declared  obligatory  upon  His  disciples.  It  behooves 
the  Christian  teacher  of  sociology,  therefore,  to  let  these 
facts  have  full  force  and  bearing  in  his  entire  course  of  in- 


4 


struction  as  to  the  origins  of  the  Christian  religion.  An 
attitude  of  skepticism  or  of  indifference  here,  cannot  fail  to 
be  injurious  in  the  highest  degree  to  the  Christian  faith  and 
character  of  his  students. 

There  is  a  method  of  teaching  the  doctrine  of  evolution 
that  does  not  involve  necessarily  a  denial  of  the  above-named 
Christian  verities.  The  book  of  Genesis  does  not  tell  us 
how  man  was  made.  No  church  and  no  State  can  under- 
take to  give  a  final  and  authoritative  interpretation  of  the 
story  of  Eden.  There  is  abundant  room  for  differences  of 
opinion  among  the  most  devout  Christians,  and  the  writer 
dares  not  deny  to  his  brethren  the  right  of  free  interpreta- 
tion which  he  claims  for  himself.  But  all  Christians  who 
accept  that  story  a«^  a  part  of  the  Word  of  God,  revealed  to 
teach  us  'Vhat  man  is  to  believe  concerning  God  and  what 
duties  God  requires  of  man,"  are  agreed  that  here  we  have 
an  inspired  account  of  the  first  things  in  human  history — 
the  first  man  and  the  first  woman,  the  first  marriage,  the 
first  home,  the  first  revelation  of  God  and  of  duty,  the  first 
manifestation  of  the  devil,  the  first  temptation,  the  first  sin 
and  the  consequent  fall  of  the  race,  the  first  shame,  the  first 
clothing,  the  first  promise  of  redemption,  the  first  judgment 
upon  man  for  sin.  These  are  facts  unquestionably  revealed, 
apart  from  all  questions  as  to  the  rhetoric  of  the  sacred  text. 
Here  are  facts  which  the  prying  research  of  science  cannot 
disprove,  a  record  which  may  not  be  dismissed  as  a  mere 
childish  legend.  Here  begins  that  "testimony  of  Jesus," 
which  is  ''the  spirit  of  prophecy."  To  dismiss  it  as  a  base- 
less myth,  is  to  assail  the  very  foundation  of  the  faith.  To 
deny  the  agency  of  an  immanent  and  personal  God  in  crea- 
tion and  in  the  development  of  man  and  of  society,  is  frank- 
ly to  deny  the  whole  truth  of  Christianity. 

These  considerations  prepare  us  for  the  definition  and 
statements  following,  which  show  the  nature  of  sociology 
as  conceived  by  the  writers  quoted,  and  the  very  broad  and 
ambitious  program  which  Darwinian  sociologists  are  at- 
tempting to  carry  out.  We  find  the  following  statements 
in  the  May  (1925)  number  of  the  Journal  of  Social  Forces: 

I.  Page  607-8.  Sociology  defined.  ''An  attempt  to 
account  for  the  origin,  growth,  structure  and  activities  of 


5 


society,  by  the  operation  of  physical,  vital  and  psychical 
causes  working  together  in  a  process  of  evolution."  This 
definition  is  agnostic.    It  leaves  God  out  of  ''the  process." 

2.  The  place  and  function  of  sociology  in  education  in- 
dicated. Page  609.  "The  study  of  the  group  will  yet 
revolutionize  the  whole  art  of  education."  Sociology  "is 
related  to  educational  organization  and  administration  in  the 
most  intimate  way  .  .  the  guide  and  foundation  of  each." 
Hence  it  must  seek  to  control  educational  objectives.  Page 
610:  "Sociology,  as  the  scientific  study  of  society,  its  forces 
and  potentialities,  is  the  only  science  to  which  the  educator 
may  reasonably  look  for  a  social  ideal  which  is  not  a  mere 
dream,  but  possible  of  realization."  This  intimates 
that  the  Christian  ideal  of  society  is  "a  mere  dream,"  and 
impossible  of  realization.  Sociology  must  be  relied  on  to 
furnish  a  better  ideal  than  can  be  found  in  the  Scriptures. 
Still  further,  sociology  must  determine  school  curricula  and 
pave  the  way  for  the  re-organization  of  society  on  a  scien- 
tific basis.  P.  611  :  "The  first  requirement  in  the  construc- 
tion of  an  educational  curriculum  is  a  sociological  one,  a 
scientific  conception  of  what  society  may  and  ought  to  be." 
.  .  "Sociology  may  render  still  another  important  service 
by  showing  not  only  what  knowledge  is  of  most  worth,  but 
the  order  in  which  such  knowledge  is  most  easily  presented. 
.  .  Sociology,  .  .  along  with  biology  and  psychology, 
is  really  the  foundation  of  educational  method."  .  .  "Dis- 
cipline is  chiefly  concerned  with  selective  and  repetitive 
processes  .  .  it  inheres  in  curricular  and  extra-curricu- 
lar activities.  The  relation  of  sociology  to  discipline,  then, 
is  exactly  the  same  as  with  respect  to  th  other  aspects  of 
education." 

In  a  word,  then,  sociology  proposes  to  furnish  mankind 
with  a  new  social  ideal,  and  to  control  the  education  of  our 
youth  so  as  to  pave  the  way  for  a  scientific  re-organization 
of  society.  That  other  sociologists  agree  with  the  writer 
above  quoted,  will  appear  in  the  follow^ing  pages. 


6 


II.— RELIGION  AS  VIEWED  BY  DARWINIAN 


SOCIOLOGISTS 

The  following  expressions,  let  it  be  noted,  are  from 
Northern  writers,  contributors — some  of  them  "contributing 
editors" — on  the  corps  of  the  Journal  of  Social  Forces.  While 
no  professor  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina  has  given 
utterance  to  such  views,  as  far  as  this  writer  is  aware,  the 
propriety  of  publishing  such  matter  in  a  magazine  issued 
under  the  auspices  of  our  University  may  weW  be  ques- 
tioned. The  injection  of  such  wholesale  doubts  as  to  the 
truth  of  Christianity  into  the  minds  of  students  of  sociology 
in  our  own  State  and  elsewhere  can  hardly  be  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  any  earnest  Christian.  Our  boys  and  girls 
will  come  in  contact  with  infidelity  soon  enough,  when  they 
leave  school  and  go  out  to  their  life-struggle  in  the  world. 
Ought  it  not  to  be  our  object  to  make  their  education  pre- 
pare them  not  only  for  useful  citizenship,  but  for  "giving 
a  reason  for  the  hope  that  is  in  them,''  and  to  qualify  them 
to  witness  for  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Jesus?  "Forewarned  is 
forearmed."  Religion  has  its  place  in  education.  But  to 
pour  infidel  notions  into  the  receptive  minds  of  young  men 
and  women  in  the  name  of  science  is  a  crime  against  im- 
mortal souls. 

In  the  review  section  of  the  Journal  of  Social  Forces  for 
May,  1925,  I  find  the  folowing  propositions  and  intimations' 

1.  Orthodoxy  of  any  type  is  distasteful  to  **the  strictly 
scientific  mind."  Dr.  F.  H.  Hankins,  a  corresponding  edi- 
tor, writes  (P.  748)  reviewing  "Christianity  and  Modern 
Thought"  by  Gabriel : — "The  'modern  thought'  of  the  title 
is  that  brand  of  modern  thought  which  is  acceptable  to  an 
advanced  orthodoxy  ....  this  will  not  suit  the  natives 
of  the  palmetto  groves  or  the  short  grass  prairies  .... 
it  will  not  suit  the  strictly  scientific  mind  either." 

2.  "Creationism,"  together  with  the  immanence  and 
personality  of  God,  all  discarded.  "Prof.  Lull  in  'Evolution- 
ism and  Religion'  discards  the  doctrine  of  creationism  as 
out  of  harmony  with,  the  universality  of  cause  and  effect  as 
pointed  out  by  science,  but  falls  back  on  the  assumption  of 


7 


an  immanent  God.  Only  the  will  to  believe  can  be  satisfied 
with  such  an  easy  evasion  of  the  really  important  question, 
'But  is  this  God  a  personal  spirit  to  which  one  can  have  re- 
course in  time  of  need?'  " 

Here  the  writer  intimates  his  own  unbelief  by  putting 
it  in  an  interrogatory  form.  One  seems  to  hear  the  echo  of 
the  devil's  question  in  Eden — "Hath  God  said?" 

3.  Faith  in  immortality  waived  aside  as  not  incentive 

to  right  living.  P.  748.  Criticising  Dean  Sperry's  argument 
that  the  fact  of  immortality  is  essential  to  give  meaning  to 
this  life,  and  quoting  his  words,  ''The  alternative  to  sucTi 
projection  of  the  immediate  experience  into  the  future  is 
sheer  irrationality,"  Hankins  remarks,  dryly. 

"That  is  one  way  of  looking  at  the  matter,  A  large  number 
of  the  best  minds  mankind  has  yet  produced  have  found  this  life, 
understood  in  relation  to  nature,  full  of  meaning  and  beauty  in  itself. 
But  one  can  only  express  a  view-point  and  let  it  go  at  that.  .  .  . 
This  book  is  too  much  concerned  with  theology  to  have  any  meaniDg- 
except  for  those  already  imbued  with  the  faith." 

Here  is  an  echo  of  Hume's  sneers  at  "the  grace  of  faith/*' 

4.  UnbeHef  in  supernatural  intimated.  P.  748.  "Dean 
Matthews  defines  religion  as  the  'complex  of  those  social 
acts  by  which  a  group  undertakes  to  ward  off  the  anger  and 
gain  the  help  of  those  superhuman  and  not  understood  ele- 
ments upon  which  it  depends.'  "  This  appears  he  adds,  to 
be  "an  acceptable  definition,  although  one  notes  in  passing- 
the  ambiguity  which  lurks  in  the  word  'superhuman.'  If 
by  this  is  meant  the  natural  forces  which  at  any  time  are  be- 
yond human  control,  one  has  a  naturalistic  conception  of 
religion ;  but  if  there  is  meant  spiritual  or  transcendental 
powers,  then  one  has  quite  a  different  thing,  the  implication 
of  supernatural  deities  conceived  as  furnishing  the  basis  for 
religious  beliefs  and  acts."  Here  "naturalistic"  means  ma- 
terialistic and  such  a  view  precludes  any  faith  in  supernat- 
ural beings.  This  is  made  sufficiently  plain  by  the  writer 
on  the  next  page. 

5.  Sociologists  not  interested  in  "assumption  of  a  p>er- 
sonal  God."  P.  749.  "If  the  sociologist  is  right  in  viewing 
religion  as  a  purely  natural  social  phenomenon  understand- 


8 


-able  in  its  entirety  through  individual  and  group  psychology, 
then  he  can  have  little  interest  in  the  query  ....  'Is  the 
religious  view  of  life,  that  is,  the  assumption  of  a  personal 
God,  consistent  with  modern  science?'  "  Note  here  the  sig- 
nificance of  the  term  ''assumption  of  a  personal  God."  Ma- 
terialistic science  which  is  the  basis  of  Darwinian  sociology, 
knows  nothing  of  a  personal  God.  It  views  religion  "as  a 
purely  natural  social  phenomenon,"  to  be  explained  by  "in- 
dividual and  group  psychology,"  refusing  to  acknowledge 
the  presence  and  agency  of  a  Divine  Spirit.  Were  one  to 
admit  that  God  has  anything  to  do  with  religious  experience, 
it  w^ould  not,  of  course,  be  "purely'  natural."  "Science"  can 
not  admit  the  presence  and  activity  of  a  personal  God ! 

Dr.  Hankins  repeats  the  same  intimation  in  discussing 
Dean  Matthews'  assertion  that  religion  can  be  put  to  the 
^experimental  test.  "What  one  misses  here"  says  Hankins, 
"is  any  attempt  at  a  natural  science  explanation  of  such  ex- 
periences." Natural  science  must  explain  it  all.  There 
must  be  no  admission  of  any  divine  revelation  or  supernat- 
ural agency ! 

6.  P.  749.  Religious  experience  ridiculed,  and  an  ar- 
gument against  Christianity  urged.  "If  they  (religious  ex- 
periences) are  to  be  considered  adequate  to  establish  the 
existence  of  the  supernatural  powers  believed  in,  then  the 
world  is  full  of  spirits,  ghosts,  demons,  angels,  gods  and 
devils,  all  capable  of  producing  genuine  bona  fide  religious 
thrills,  quality  and  quantity  dependent  upon  the  size  of  the 
deity  and  the  depth  of  the  faith  of  the  believer."  What 
strength  of  logic  and  what  delicious  scientific  humor !  As- 
suming that  all  religious  experience  is  simply  a  matter  of 
"thrill,"  whether  among  Christians  or  heathen,  the  writer 
attempts  to  refute  Christianity  by  the  method  of  reductio 
ad  absurdum.  Heathen  experiences  produce  "genuine  bona 
fide  religious  thrills"  (?)  as  well  as  Christian  experiences; 
therefore  science  can  put  no  confidence  in  any ! 

7.  The  question  of  immortality  pronounced  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  the  scientific  mind,  and  then  sneered  at. 

P.  749.    "Canon  Barnes  and  Principal  Galloway  

unite  in  saying  that  'if  we  restrict  ourselves  to  what  science 
and  metaphysics  can  tell  us,  the  problem  of  life  after  death 


9 


is  likely  to  end  in  a  note  of  uncertainty/  But  the  former 
joins  with  Rudolph  Eucken  in  holding  .  .  .  that  if  the 
universe  be  conceived  as  rational,  then  the  destruction  of 
the  human  personality  after  death  would  be  irrational.  The 
indif¥erent  mind  cannot  follow  such  reasoning,  and  must 
feel  that  the  good  professors  are  merely  whistling  to  keep  up 
their  courage."  Which  means  that  Christian  apologetes  of 
that  type  are  sadly  in  the  dark  and  very  much  frightened  by 
scientific  opposition  !  To  the  same  effect  is  our  reviewer's 
criticism  of  Macintyre's  argument  for  immortality  that 
one  may  accept  the  doctrine  that  physical  man  evolved  from 
the  brutes,  but  his  evolution  is  now  continuing  on  the 
psychic  plane  so  that  man  is  becoming  more  and  more  spir- 
itually-minded with  the  passing  of  generations.  "This,"  he 
says,  "is  pretty  hard  on  our  billions  of  forebears,  but  if  the 
process  succeeds  in  supplying  our  descendants  with  genuine 
spiritual  souls,  metaphysically  integrated,  but  physically 
non-existent,  we  need  not  be  overcritical."  This  is  a  sneer 
at  the  doctrine  that  man  may  acquire,  or  has  acquired  an  im- 
n^ortal  soul,  even  when  urged  on  evolutionary  grounds. 

8.    A    Materialistic    argument    against  immortality. 

P.  750.    In  a  nutshell  this  argument  is  this : 

Nature  furnishes  no  instance  of  life  continuing"  after 
death.  Life  is  known  only  in  connection  with  organic 
structures ;  is,  in  fact,  only  the  functioning  of  such  struc- 
tures, disappearing  inevitably  with  their  serious  alteration 
or  destruction.  The  only  immortality  known  to  science  is 
the  continuance  of  life  through  reproduction  of  cells, — the 
physical  continuity  of  the  stream  of  life.  Mind  is  unknown 
and  unthinkable  in  realistic  terms  apart  from  nerve  struc- 
ture. When  that  is  destroyed  ,there  is  and  can  be,  no  mind. 
Finally,  physical  research  has  failed  to  produce  a  single  case 
of  spirit  manifestation. 

All  which  intimates  that  the  only  possibility  of  im- 
mortality that  man  may  know  is  such  immortality  as  is 
implied  in  the  continuance  of  individual  life  through  one's 
offspring.  No  personal  immortality  can  be  admitted  by 
this  Darwinian  sociologist. 


10 


9-  The  possibility  of  divine  revelation  denied.  Pro- 
ceeding, the  writer  asserts  that  "there  are  no  means  where- 
by pure  and  genuine  spirit  can  make  itself  manifest  to  man." 
That  is,  a  Divine  Spirit  could  not  if  He  would  reveal  Him- 
self to  man. 

10.  Faith  in  personal  immortality  of  the  soul  is  sur- 
rendered with  increasing  knowledge.  ''Souls  become  more 
and  more  shadowy  with  the  growth  of  knowledge  and  so- 
phistication until  in  a  strictly  scientific  view,  they  disap- 
pear altogether  in  a  sort  of  universal  energy,  an  impersonal 
Nirvana,  where  personality  and  identity  are  both  lost  at 
once."  Further,  Dr.  Hankins  approves  Prof.  Tsanofif's  po- 
sitions as  ''quite  in  harmony  with  the  finest  scientific  and 
philosophical  tradition."  Why?  "He  recognizes  that  the 
crude  popular  conceptions  of  a  biological  or  psychological 
existence  of  the  identical  and  identifiable  person  in  saecula 
saeculorum,  in  some  material  or  thinly  material  form  are 
no  longer  w^orth  arguing."  Bating  what  the  reviewer  says 
as  to  the  "material  or  thinly  material  form"  of  souls  depart- 
ed as  we  conceive  them,  the  "crude  popular  conceptions"  of 
immortal  spirits  are  simply  the  teachings  of  the  Scriptures 
and  of  Christ  on  that  subject.  But  it  is  not  "worth  argu- 
ing." Science  has  now,  finally  and  forever,  settled  the 
question  for  all  intelligent  persons ! 

Again :  Referring  to  Tsanofif's  argument  that  the 
striving  for  moral  perfection  which  man  alone  manifests,  is 
at  once  evidence  of  the  unity  and  uniqueness  of  the  human 
personality,  and  hence  its  claim  to  immortality,  our  reviewer 
says :  "Tsanofif  admits  that  this  conclusion  rests  on  hope 
and  an  act  of  faith  and  hence  he  will  not  expect  to  convince 
the  scientific."  Bearing  in  mind  the  assertion  of  Barnes 
ii!  the  January  number,  that  Christianity  has  retarded  the 
progress  of  the  race,  we  would  judge  that  it  is  a  settled  con- 
viction with  such  men  that  the  Christian  religion  in  all  its 
items  of  faith  is  irrational  and  unscientific,  and  that  the 
sooner  it  is  laughed  out  of  the  world  as  a  mere  congeries  of 
superstitions,  the  better  it  wiU  be  for  the  progress  of  science, 
and  of  mankind  through  the  advance  of  science.  That  gen- 
eral abandonment  of  Christianity  by  the  people  would  great- 


II 


ly  increase  the  vogue  and  popularity  of  evolutionary  sociol- 
ogy, is  beyond  question. 

11.  Faith  in  immortality  is  opposed  to  a  really  intelli- 
gent mode  of  living.  P.  751.  Proceeding,  Hankins  says, 
''The  belief  in  a  future  life,  is  not  essential  to  give  meaning 
to  this  one.  There  is,  in  fact,  a  direct  antithesis  between 
the  two  lives.  The  less  the  one  this  side  the  grave  means, 
the  more  the  one  on  the  other  side  is  glorified.  But  when 
this  life  becomes  filled  with  vivid  reality,  the  other  loses 
interest.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  a  really  intelligent  mode  of 
living  here  and  now  is  not  affected  in  the  slightest  degree 
by  any  belief  concerning  the  hereafter."  Which  intimates 
plainly  that  the  people  who  are  superstitious  enough  to  sing 

"A  charge  to  keep  I  have, 

A  God  to  glorify, 
A  never-dying  soul  to  save 

And  fit  it  for  the  sky" 

are  not  really  intelligent! 

12.  An  intimation  of  atheism.  P.  751.  Pronouncing 
Prof.  Selbie's  "Psychology  of  Religion"  "a  welcome  addition 
t(^  the  literature  of  religious  psychology,"  our  reviewer  crit- 
icises the  author  for  rejecting  "the  psycho-analytic  interpre- 
tation of  many  religious  phenomena.  Thus  when  Jung 
declares  that  the  idea  of  God  is  merely  an  infantile  projection 
from  our  consciousness  and  thus  denies  the  existence  of  God, 
Prof.  Selbie  replies  that  the  existence  of  God  is  definitely 
proven  to  the  religious  person  by  his  own  experience,  his 
consciousness  of  contact  and  communion  with  him.  But 
this  is  an  exceedingly  naive  reply."  Which  is  to  say,  stupid ! 
Proceeding,  our  reviewer  says,  "On  this  ground  the  exis- 
tence of  every  god,  devil  and  ghost  ever  believed  in  by  prim- 
itive man  would  be  proven,  for  they  all  made  themselves 
clear  to  the  consciousness  of  the  individual  believer.  There 
is  in  fact  in  Prof.  Selbie's  own  volume  abundant  material 
for  the  interpretation  of  the  whole  religious  experiences 
in  terms  of  individual  and  social  psychology  without  any 
resort  to  supernatural  influences." 

The  next  volume  reviewed  is  one  of  which  "much  the 
same  may  be  said."    It  is  the  volume  of  Dean  Matthews, 


12 


of  King's  College,  London,  on  ''The  Psychological  Approach 
tc  Religion." 

''In  a  clear  and  candid  manner  he  discusses  the  psychology  of 
belief  in  God,  conversion  and  immortality.  He  states  all  the  common 
sense  arguments  and  some  of  the  scientific  ones,  only  to  reject  them 
on  the  grcund  that  these  matters  are  in  the  last  analysis  metaphysical 
in  nature  and  therefore  psychology  cannot  have  the  final  voice.  He 
admits  that  psychology  points  to  the  dependence  of  the  soul  on  the 
body  and  this  makes  the  assumption  of  the  separate  existence  of  the 
soul  precarious;  but  he  takes  some  comfort  in  the  assumption  of  the 
interaction  of  mind  and  body  which  psychology  cannot  at  least  wholly 
disprove;  and  this  gives  some  ground  for  the  hope  that  the  soul  is 
capable  of  a  free  and  independent  existence.  In  a  word  he  admits 
that  science  furnishes  scant  basis  for  the  belief  in  immortality  and 
therefore  he  thinks  it  wise  to  take  refuge  in  metaphysics  where  each 
may  indulge  his  own  fancies  without  fear  of  being  embarrased  by 
facts. " 

Aside  from  showing  the  weakness  of  the  ''Modernist" 
apologetic,  this  criticism  shows  how  a  true  Darwinian  hes- 
itates to  accept  any  proofs  of  God,  or  of  immortality.  Dean 
Matthews  finds  "some  ground"  for  his  faith ;  takes  "some 
comfort"  in  an  assumption;  and  at  last  takes  refuge  in 
metaphysics  where  one  cannot  be  embarrassed  by  facts! 
Science  furnishes  scant  basis  for  any  faith  in  immortality ! 

Note  here  also  another  expression  of  contempt  for  meta- 
physics. The  psychology  of  which  author  and  reviewer 
both  speak  is  the  new  Spencerian  psychology  which  is  ma- 
terialistic throughout,  and  is  based  on  evolutionary  assump- 
tions. Materialistic  and  agnostic  science  does  not  and  can 
not  admit  the  existence  of  a  soul  in  man,  considered  as  an 
intellectual,  moral  and  spiritual  entity,  separable  from  "so- 
matic energy." 

13.  If  man  can  be  shown  to  be  immortal,  the  same  ar- 
guments will  prove  the  immortality  of  animals  of  "many 
sorts  from  insects  up."  P.  752,  review  of  "Passing  of 
Phantoms"  by  Patten. 

"He  not  only  argues  for  the  existence  of  mind  throughout  living 
things,  but  advances  a  quantity  of  evidence  for  the  evolution  of  mind 
from  plant  to  man,  and  of  morals  from  mo'st  rudimentary  beginnings 
to  the  highly  complicated  human  systems.  Human  consciousness  can 
not  be  set  apart  from  the  rest  of  nature  as  something  of  a  special  sort. 
.  .  .  Substantially  all  the  arguments  for  human  immortality  must 
apply  also  to  animals  o"f  many  sorts  from  insects  up.  There  is  no 
escape  from  this  except  in  assumptions  which  make  man  a  special 


13 


creation,  assumptious  from  which  the  belief  in  human  immortality 
cannot  be  deduced.    This,  is,  of  course,  a  question  begging  solution. ' ' 

14.  Non-Superstitious  Man  will  not  trouble  himself 
about  God  or  Immortality.    Proceeding*  Dr.  Hankins  says: 

''Consciousness  is  an  attribute  of  highly  complex  nervous  struc- 
tures, as  strength  is  the  functioning  of  living  muscular  tissues.  But 
if" — as  the  writer  strongly  intimates  is  the  case — "the  soul  be  not 
immortal,  what  of  moral  values  and  the  meaning  of  life?  Patten 
finds  such  values  and  meaning  inherent  in  the  processes  and  values  of 
life  itself.  Indeed  he  concludes  that  the  Non-Superstitious  Man  who 
is  evolving  in  our  scientific  age  can  find  in  these  processes  'funda- 
mental rules  of  morality  apart  from  imaginative  conception  of  the 
supernatural. '  This  is  sufficiently  obvious  to  those  who  have  sufficient 
mental  freedom  to  see  it;  to  others  it  will  be  meaningless." 

Here  the  title  of  the  book  reviewed  shows  its  material- 
istic nature  and  its  anti-Christian  animus,  and  the  reviewer 
endorses  Mr.  Patten  emphatically,  with  a  sneer  at  the  men- 
tal slavery  of  those  who  do  not  agree  that  the  supernatural 
is  only  an  "imaginative  conception." 

15.  God  and  immortality  find  no  support  in  science. 

P.  752.  ''One  expects  from  Bertrand  Russell  a  viewpoint 
thoroughly  in  harmony  with  the  logic  of  modern  science. 
'What  I  Believe'  is  not  only  written  from  such  a  viewpoint, 
but  is  one  of  the  clearest,  most  readable  and  most  construc- 
tive utterances  which  has  come  from  Russell  for  a  long 
time."  Why  such  unstinted  praise?  Perhaps  the  next 
sentence  will  explain  the  approbation  of  the  agnostic  re- 
viewer. *'At  the  very  outset  he  rejects  both  God  and  im- 
mortality as  finding  no  support  in  science.  Moreover  he 
finds  that  neither  is  essential  to  religion  because  neither  is 
found  in  Buddhism.  In  view  of  the  fact  that  thinking  and 
personality  are  based  on  brain  structure  and  functions,  he 
finds  it  inconceivable  that  these  activities  should  persist 
after  death.  He  finds  that  religion  is  based  on  an  original 
fear  of  nature ;  but  all  fear  is  bad  and  therefore" — 

16.  "Religion  has  stultified  the  human  mind,  and  hin- 
dered the  development  of  the  human  personality."    .  . 

Further,  says  our  reviewer,  with  cordial  approval,  "he  finds 
that  traditional  morality  is  too  largely  compounded  of  su- 
perstitious mandates  from  the  gods.    They  therefore  un- 


14 


necessarily  restrain  individuals  and  produce  a  warping  of 
personalities  and  a  cultivation  of  mutual  misunderstandings 
and  hatreds  which  fill  the  world  with  suspicions  and  terrors." 

Christianity  is  responsible  for  hatreds  etc. !  It.  will 
never  do'  to  tell  our  young  students  of  sociology  that  God 
gave  the  ten  commandments  to  Moses  to  be  made  known  to 
Israel.  Such  superstitious  mandates  of  the  gods  "warp 
the  human  personality !"  No  skeptic  or  atheist  was  ever 
satisfied  with  the  ten  commandments.  As  some  old  divine 
said,  ''A  bad  heart  is  the  greatest  of  all  arguments  against 
the  Bible." 

17.  Authority  of  conscience  derided.  ''Conscience  is 
a  most  fallacious  guide,  since  it  consists  of  vague  reminis- 
cences of  precepts  heard  in  early  youth,  so  that  it  is  never 
wiser  than  its  possessor's  nurse  or  mother."  Which  implies 
that  God  did  not  reveal  any  moral  law,  and  conscience  is  not 
a  faculty  of  moral  judgment  divinely  implanted  in  man, 
which  witnesses  to  the  authority  and  righteousness  of  His 
law ! 

18.  Religion  unnecessary  for  the  right  ordering  of 
one's  life.  "To  live  a  good  life  in  the  fullest  sense,  a  man 
must  have  a  good  education,  friends,  love,  children  if  he  de- 
sires them,"  (not  necessarily  a  wife,  of  course,  since  God 
never  revealed  any  law  for  our  guidance  in  such  matters), 
^'a  sufficient  income  to  keep  him  from  want  and  grave  anx- 
iety, good  health,  and  work  which  is  not  uninteresting.  All 
these  things  in  varying  degree  depend  upon  the  community, 
and  are  helped  or  hindered  by  political  events.  The  good 
life  must  be  lived  in  a  good  society,  and  is  not  fully  possible 
otherwise." 

This  is  the  highest  ideal  materialism  offers.  David 
Livingstone,  Henry  Martyn,  Adoniram  Judson,  and  all  the 
liost  of  Christian  missionaries,  not  to  speak  of  prophets  and 
saints  and  martyrs,  all  failed  to  live  "the  good  life,"  and  as 
man  is  not  immortal,  according  to  the  author  and  reviewer, 
they  missed  all  the  good  that  was  possible  to  them.  It  is 
n^ere  folly  even  to  desire  to  join  "the  choir  invisible,  whose 
music  is  the  gladness  of  the  world,"  and  in  order  to  this  deny 


15 


one's  self.  There  is  no  living  the  good  life  unless  you  have- 
a  "good  time." 

Proceeding,  our  reviewer  says,  with  relish,  ''Instead, 
then  of  the  mixture  of  preaching  and  bribery  which  is  at  the 
basis  of  present  moral  training,  Russell  would  substitute  an> 
active  cultivation  of  helpfulness  and  courage  on  the  basis  of 
a  scientific  knowledge  of  individual'  and  social  psychology.. 
He  would  organize  society  and  tradition  so  as  to  combat- 
fear, — fear  both  of  the  living  and  the  dead."  Fear  of  the 
living  would  include  the  living  God  if  there  be  one.  Tradition, 
is  to  be  "organized,"  which  is  euphemism  for  getting  rid  of 
the  religion  of  the  Bible.  Rid  men  of  the  idea  that  "the  fear 
of  the  Lord  is  the  beginning  of  wisdom,  and  the  knowledge 
of  the  Holy  One  is  understanding."  Why?  He  gives  the 
scientific  reason:  "Through  science  it  should  be  possible 
in  the  coming  generation  to  enable  the  vast  majority  of 
people  to  live  the  good  life  through  .  .  .  knowledge, 
self-control  and  that  benevolent  understanding  which  pro- 
duces harmony  among  men." 

19.  Science  alone  can  furnish  moral  guidance  for  man- 
kind. P.  753.  "Russell  .  .  .  implies  more  than  once 
that  there  is  no  basis  for  ethical  codes  except  individual  or 
human  desires.  .  ,  .  There  is  in  fact  an  objective  test 
of  moral  codes  and  precepts,  because  in  the  long  run  those- 
individuals,  families  and  societies  which  achieve  healths- 
vigor  and  intelligent  command  over  the  essential  conditions 
of  life  persist.  Science  alone  can  point  the  way  to  such  an 
ethical  code."  Here  is  another  implication  that  God  never 
did  reveal  any  moral  law  for  man  to  obey.  This  squares- 
with  the  proposition  made  by  Dr.  Barnes  in  the  January- 
number  of  the  Journal  of  Social  Forces,  that  a  committee  of 
scientific  experts  be  appointed  to  compile  such  a  code.  It 
will  be  a  substitute  for  the  ten  commandments  and  for  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  especially  in  those  portions  in  which 
the  Master  alludes  to  lying,  fornication  and  adultery.  Such 
commandments  "cramp  the  human  personality." 

20.  Affirms  that  historic  Christianity  is  itself  a  pla- 
giarism and  the  historic  existence  of  Jesus  doubtful.  Re- 
viewing Churchward's  "Origin  and  Evolution  of  Religion/' 


16 


Prof.  Hankins  criticises  the  author  for  his  failure  to  give 
proofs  of  his  many  assertions,  yet  shows  decided  relish  for 
his  outspoken  infidelity.  While  he  ridicules  the  author's 
reasons  for  believing  that  man  has  a  soul  (P.  756)  he  lets  it 
appear  that  he  is  impressed  with  Churchward's  attempt  to 
show  that  Christianity  copied  from  ancient  Egyptian  heath- 
enism. "Every  student  of  religious  phenomena  will  wish 
to  read  it,"  he  says.  Proceeding,  he  gives  the  parallel  which 
Churchward  claims  to  have  established  between  Horus  and 
Jesus,  extending  from  pre-existence  and  divinity  to  annun- 
ciation, miraculous  conception,  birth  and  adoration,  miracles, 
says,  sacrificial  death,  and  resurrection.  Our  reviewer 
concludes  with  a  hint  that  possibly  Jesus  never  lived,  and 
that  in  any  event  the  doctrines  of  Christianity  are  without 
divine  sanction.  "Whether  the  author  is  correct  in  deny- 
ing the  historic  existence  of  Jesus  (P.  756)  he  has  made  it 
plain  that  no  such  existence  was  necessary  to  the  develop- 
ment of  such  a  body  of  religious  doctrines  as  centered  about 
him."  Which  is  to  say,  that  in  any  event,  Christianity  is 
without  divine  authority.  Further,  says  our  reviewer, 
"When  one  realizes  the  ease  of  myth  manufacture  and 
transference,  that  the  first  mention  of  Jesus  is  in  Paul's 
epistle  to  the  Thessalonians  about  twenty  years  after  the 
crucifixion  is  supposed  (sic)  to  have  occurred,  and  that  the 
only  mention  of  him  as  an  assumed  (sic)  historical  character 
is  in  the  sacred  writings  themselves," — which,  as  we  have 
seen,  is  not  a  thing  which  appeals  at  all  to  the  "strictly 
scientific  mind," — "and  that  the  Savior  God  was  an  ancient 
and  wide-spread  feature  of  religious  tradition  .  .  .  one 
realizes  that  Christian  doctrine  and  practice  are  at  least  a 
compound  of  many  older  religious  elements." 

21.  Encourages  opposition  to  prohibition.  I  pass  over 
the  first  review  article  of  Dr.  Parshley  on  "Some  Aspects  of 
Sin,"  with  its  decidedly  socialistic  flavor,  which  is  common 
to  all  the  Northern  and  Western  writers  who  favor  the 
Journal  of  Social  Forces  with  their  essays,  pausing  only  to 
quote  his  remark  (757)  in  regard  to  prohibition,  referring 
tc  the  measures  of  repeal  urged  by  the  author:  "Apparently 
he  has  never  heard  of  lapsed  legislation."  This  intimates 
that  eventually  prohibition  will  simply  be  abandoned  with- 
out further  legislation,  the  law  becoming  a  dead  letter. 


17 


22.  Masturbation  advised.  Reviewing  **Sex  and 
Life"  by  Dr.  W.  F.  Robie,  which  he  commends  as  showing 

great  deal  of  good  sense  and  good  science  .  .  .  "  he 
tacitly  endorses  Dr.  Robie's  approval  of  ''auto-erotism" — in 
plain  English,  self-abuse — as  "providentially  available  faute 
de  mieux."  Here  a  commendation  of  a  beastly  and  destruc- 
tive vice  is  given  without  dissent.    Can  anybody  tell  why? 

^3-  Opposition  to  any  form  of  Christianity  expressed. 
I^P-  759  seq.  Dr.  J.  S.  Bixler's  paper,  "Some  Aspects 
of  Modernism"  is  valuable,  as  showing  the  futility  of^he 
modernist  apologetic  as  against  the  oppositions  of  Darwin- 
ism. Reviewing  Dr.  Fosdick's  "Modern  Uses  of  the  Bble" 
and  Dean  Matthews'  "Faith  of  Modernism"  he  remarks  that 
"it  seems  hardly  possible  that  a  fair-minded  person  could 
read  either  book  and  remain  a  fundamentalist."  Will  he 
then  become  a  modernist?  No. 

* '  The  canons  of  reasonableness  and  abiding  human  value  which 
these  writers  have  set  up  might  point  the  way  to  freedom  not  ooily 
from  the  limitations  of  fundamentalism,  but  from  those  of  Christian- 
ity itself  in  its  historical  and  particularistic  aspect.  Dr.  Fosdick's 
position  seems  especially  ambiguous  on  this  point.  The  Bible  is  held 
up  because  it  is  the  repository  of  truths  that  are  eternal.  But  no 
hint  is  given  of  the  eternal  truths  which  are  found  outside  the  Bible. 
The  writer  gives  the  impression  of  being  able  to  find  value  only  in 
that  which  is  both  abiding  and  Biblical.  .  .  But  it  may  be  quer- 
ied whether  the  weakest  place  in  the  modernist  position  is  not  this 
tendency  to  cling  to  a  particularistic  view  when  the  criteria  by  which 
the  view  is  reached  are  universal.  The  same  problem  recurs  in  the 
chapters  on  Jesus.  We  must  adore  him,  says  Dr.  Fo'sdick,  because 
H(!  brings  a  life-bringing  experience  of  the  divine.  But  is  this  ex- 
perience one  that  can  be  called  life-bringing  because  through  some 
higher  authority  of  its  own  it  transcends  and  supercedes  our  human 
categories  [modes  of  thought],  or  is  it  because  it  harmoniously  fits 
and  effectively  responds  to  the  reason  and  conscience  which  are  our 
mental  and  moral  equipment  as  human  beings?  If  the  former,  why 
make  permanence  and  pertinence  to  human  need  the  criteria?  If  the 
latter,  why  look  to  Jesus  alone  for  an  experience  that  is  life-bring- 
ing?" 

Let  Modernists  handle  this  dilemma  as  best  they  can. 
It  holds  no  terrors  for  any  man  who  believes  with  all  his 
heart  that  "there  is  no  other  name  given  under  heaven 
whereby  we  may  be  saved  but  the  name  of  Jesus." 

24.    The  religion  of  the  future  will  be  a  hodge-podge  of 


18 


all  religions,  past  and  present,  and  Christianity  will  be  su- 
perceded.   Our  reviewer  goes  on  to  say : 

"Dean  Matthews  would  probably  reply  that  it  is  only  in  the 
Christian  community  that  we  find  the  religious  experience  which  truly 
satisfies.  But  a  large  part  of  the  race  has  found  satisfaction  in  oth- 
er groups  (sociological  for  religious  or  other  communities),  and  the 
Christian  community  has  its  debit  and  credit  account.  Although 
syncretistic  and  eclectic  movements  have  not  succeeded  in  the  past, 
it  seems  probable!  that  the  religion  of  the  future  will  be  eclectic  at 
least  in  being  untrammeled  by  the  limitations  of  any  one  historic 
movement,  and  free  to  adopt  whatever  of  value  it  can  find  in  any 
faith." 

Whatever  it  may  be,  the  religion  of  the  future  cannot  be 
Christianity ! 

25.  Teachers  and  parents  urged  to  educate  children  not 
to  believe  in  the  supernatural  and  the  miraculous. 

Dr.  Bixler  commends  Prof.  Streibert's  book,  ''Youth  and 
the  Bible"  as  "definite  and  compelling."  P.  768.  Why? 
**As  a  college  teacher  of  the  Bible  she  has  found  her  w^ork 
hampered  by  the  crude  notions  of  Biblical  material  and  out- 
moded conceptions  of  religion  which  the  students  have 
brought  to  the  class-room."  There  must  be  a  change,  he 
insists,  in  the  methods  of  primary  religious  education.  ''From 
the  beginning  the  child  must  learn  to  expect  to  find  in  the 
Bble  the  evidence  of  its  authors'  frailty.  He  must  also 
learn  not  to  associate  religion  with  the  miraculous  and  su- 
pernatural. God  is  immanent  in  nature  and  in  man.  He 
is  revealed  most  adequately  in  the  least  limited  forms  of  life. 
Religion  is  the  attitude  of  conscious  co-operation  with  the 
morally  achieving  spirit  of  the  universe."  He  approves  the 
author^s  suggestion  that  "antiquated  sections"  of  the  Bible 
"be  treated  frankly  and  explained  for  what  they  are  worth." 
Accepted,  that  is,  like  the  testimony  of  a  doubtful  witness ! 
And  when  did  the  Word  of  God  become  "outmoded"  and 
antiquated?  Some  of  us  have  been  simple  enough  to  be- 
lieve that  "the  Word  of  the  Lord  endureth  forever."  Were 
we  mistaken?  .  .  .  "The  problems  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, especially  those  attending  the  stories  of  the  infancy 
and  resurrection,  are  faced  unflinchingly."  Which  means 
that  the  virgin  birth  and  the  physical  resurrection  of  Jesus 
are  rejected  by  this  college  Bible  teacher,  Prof.  Streibert,  as 
a  matter  of  course,  as  also  by  the  reviewer. 


19 


26.  Religious  experience  pronounced  infantile.  Prof. 
Kimball  Young  gives  us  "A  Realistic  Approach  to  the  Na- 
ture of  Religion."  Pp.  762-766.  It  gives  us  a  vivid  appre- 
ciation of  the  scientific  attitude  of  Darwinian  sociologists 
toward  the  phenomena  of  religious  experience.  Their  ap- 
proach is  "realistic,"  which  is  to  say,  materialistic.  Review- 
ing Everett  Dean  Martin's  book,  ''The  Mystery  of  Religion" 
and  Elizabeth  Goldsmith's  "Life  Symbols  as  Related  to  Sex 
S3^mbolism,"  Prof.  Young  approves  the  statements  of  Mar- 
tin that  "for  the  believer  the  religious  thrill  is  something 
vital,  alive  and  gripping.  The  religious  experience,  more- 
over, is  projected  outward  from  the  individual's  mind  in  the 
form  of  symbols."  That  is,  God  has  nothing  to  do  with  it. 
It  is  all  from  within !  "Since  the  roots  of  this  experience 
lie  in  infantile  wishes,  the  symbolism  [which  means  concep- 
tions of  gods,  devils,  etc.]  partakes  of  the  nature  of  the 
childish  psyche,  rather  than  of  the  objective  matter-of-fact- 
ness  of  adulthood." 

27.  All  religion  breeds  a  selfish,  hateful  and  persecut- 
ing spirit.  "Connected,  too,  with  compulsive  behavior  [all 
religious  beliefs  and  practices,  understand,  being  forced  on 
one  through  "group  psychology,"]  is  often  a  decided  sense 
of  inferiority.  This  gives  rise  in  religious  experience  to  in- 
tense humility  toward  objects  of  worship,  a  belief  in  future 
compensations" — here  the  writer  quotes  'Blessed  are  the 
m.eek:  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth' — "On  the  other  hand 
this  same  sense  of  inferiority  gives  rise  to  intense  cruelty 
and  fanaticism  toward  those  who  oppose  one's  religious 
conceptions." 

28.  Science  unalterably  opposed  to  all  religion.  "Not 
only  is  religion  symbolic,  [which,  as  we  saw,  means  here 
imaginative  altogether],  it  is  also  fundamentally  teleologic- 
al.  It  can  not  escape  being  so.  Just  as  science  today 
rather  prides  itself  on  being  non-teleological,  a  religion 
v.'hich  does  not  touch  ultimate  purposes  would  be  as  absurd 
as  it  would  be  futile."  Science  prides  itself  on  being  "non- 
teleological"— that  is,  refusing  to  believe  that  there  is  a  di- 
vine purpose  in  anything. 

29.  All  the  truth  that  there  is  in  religion  lies  in  the  sat- 
isfactions which  it  affords  to  believers.     "The  truth  of  re- 


20 


ligion  [the  author  reiterates,  we  are  told,  but  evidently  the 
reviewer  approves  the  idea]  is  not  the  external  objectivity 
of  religious  traditions,  but  lies  within  the  satisfactions  which 
the  personality  finds  in  religious  practices  and  sentiments. 
As  he  remarks,  the  truth  of  Christianity,  as  religious  truth, 
might  conceivably  remain  unaltered,  even  though  no  .such 
person  as  Jesus  could  be  found  in  history."  Which  is  to  say, 
a  ''true"  religion  is  independent  of  historic  Christianity. 

30.  A  sociological  definition  and  explanation  of  religion 
which  makes  it  contemptible.  Religion,  we  are  told,  ''is  our 
symbolic  expression  of  our  wish  that  the  universe  were  run 
in  our  interest."  It  "furnishes  a  means  whereby  the  normal 
person  can  symbolically  recover  much  of  the  lost  egotism 
of  childhood  in  socially  acceptable  ways.  The  neurotic,  on 
the  other  hand,  has  flight  from  reality  into  illness  for  much 
the  same  purpose."    Religion,  then,  is  "flight  from  reality." 

What  the  religious  interest  strives  to  do  is  to'  preserve  intact  an 
infantile  image  of  the  ideal  father,  perfect  and  *'pure"  and  sinless, 
and  at  the  same  time  render  this  image  tolerant  and  ''forgiving"  of 
the  existence  in  the  believer  of  the  very  ''sinful  nature"  in  himself 
whch  his  infantile  egotism  struck  out  of  the  image  of  the  perfect  one. 
Hence,  psychologically  speaking,  reconciliation  with  the  father  means 
reconciliation  o'f  our  infantile  jealousy  with  the  fact  of  our  own  ma- 
turity. 

Further,  religion  is  altogether  a  product  of  "group  psy- 
chology." Says  our  reviewer,  giving  with  approval  the 
views  of  the  author  reviewed : 

The  insistence  on  religious  practices  by  members  of  the  com- 
munity is  accomplished  by  all  the  techniques  of  control:  taboo,  pun- 
ishment, repressive  measures  generally.  The  enemies  of  the  religious 
dogmas  of  the  group  are  hated,  shunned  and  feared,  while  the  adher- 
ents, the  members  of  the  community,  are  "the  saved,"  the  "holy" 
OTies,  the  "good"  people.  Here  on  a  wider  canvass  are  found  once 
more  the  ambivalent  attitudes  of  love  and  hatred  which  we  saw  in 
the  individual's  response  to  the  "good  Father"  image,  G-od,  and  the 
"bad  father"  image,  the  Devil. 

Here  is  scientific  scorn  for  the  very  ideas  of  goodness, 
of  holiness,  and  of  salvation,  and  a  slander  of  Christianity, 
the  religion  of  love.  Also,  note  the  atheistic  implications. 
God  and  the  devil  are  merely  images,  which  means  imagina- 
tions.  The  reviewer  makes  this  plain  as  he  proceeds. 

Religious  ceremonialism  is  'non-adaptive.'  The  rites  and  ges- 
tures fulfill  the  essential  function  by  giving  the  believen  release  from 


21 


feeling  of  sin  [that,  from  a  scientific  stand-point,  is  all  there  is  in  it] 
and  unworthiness  because  he  has  done  the  "rig-ht"  thing,  just  as  the 
compulsive  [i.  e.,  the  insane  man,  who  is  the  victim  of  a  ''religious 
complex"]  frees  himself  from  his  fears  and  conflicts  by  his  private 
ceremonies.  Thus  baptism,  re-birth  from  water,  is  directly  related 
to  the  neurotic  compulsive  bathing,  hand-washing  and  thei  like,  which 
we  know,  is,  in  turn,  associated  with  unconscious  mechanisms  of  wish 
to  return  to  the  mother  and  to  be'  re-born.  Likewise  initiatory  and 
purificatory  rites  set  the  faithful  at  rest  with  themselves  and  with 
their  projection  of  themselves — their  God." 

This  is  atheism.  God  is  simply  our  projection  of  our- 
selves— our  imagination  of  a  god  framed  upon  ourselves 
as  a  model. 

Here  is  scientific  contempt  for  the  ideas  of  the  new 
birth,  baptism,  prayer,  and  even  of  God.  But  this  is  not 
all. 

"The  function  of  religion  isi  thus  to  assist  the  ego  to  'stand  this 
universe'  by  re-weaving  it  into  pleasant  dream-like  patterns. 

The  most  effective  change  in  the  future,  for  the  author,  is  the 
self-conscious  acknowledgement  of  our  conflicts,  the  abolishment  of  the 
infantilisms  of  the  past  religions  [Christianity  is  here  viewed  as  past!] 
and  the  conscious  driections  to  "the  reassembling  one's  personality 
picture  so  as  to  make  it  an  effective  instrument  of  orientation." 

I  quote  two  of  Dr.  Young's  criticisms.  In  the  first,  he 
intimates  that  the  religion  of  Jesus  is  a  plagiarism  from  old- 
er systems. 

' '  The  author  does  not  draw  on  primitive  religions.  .  .  Yet 
there  is  a  mass  of  material  on  the  psychology  of  the  birth  of  the  hero 
and  semi-deity  from  the  virgin,  and  on  the  psychology-  of  myth-mak- 
ing, and  the  exposure  of  the  infantilisms  in  early  religious  cosmogonies 
which  could  have  been  presented.  .  .  The  statement  that  the 
ceremonials  of  the  neurotic,  from  whom  the  author  draws  the  religious 
rituals,  are  non-adaptive,  is  misleading.  The  ceremonials  are  adap- 
tive, without  them  the  personality  would  go  completely  to  pieces. 
They  may  not  be  socially  efiicient,  but  certainly  they  have  a  survival 
function  in  the  neurotic,  and  especially  in  the  mildly  psychopathic 
personages.  So,  too,  I  think  we  may  say  that  the  ceremonies  of 
religion  serve  a  definite  purpose  in  giving  expression  to  infantile 
attitudes  in  socially  acceptable  manners.  In  this  sensei  they  are  not 
completely  foolish  and  valueless." 

The  author  thought  them  so,  but  the  scientific  reviewer 
contends  that  they  are  good  for  childish  folks,  for  hysterical 
women  and  "mildly  psycopathic"  men.     Is  it  wonderful 
that  the  reviewer  is  delighted  with  Martin's  "exposure  of  • 
the  roots  of  religious  experience?" 


22 


3T.    Finally,  Christianity  is  passing,  but  may  or  may 
not  give  way  to  something  better. — ''The  future  religions 
will  grow  out  of  the  matrix  of  the  general  culture,  as  will ' 
future  art." 

The  final  overthrow  of  Christianity  is  hypothetically 
predicted.  P.  765.  "The  author  asks,  'Are  A\e  facing  a 
Revival  of  Religion?'"  This  does  not  mean  a  religious 
revival,  as  Glenn  Frank  intimated  in  his  address  at  Chapel 
Hill.  Our  reviewer  proceeds  to  intimate  the  author's 
answer  to  that  question. 

Whether  we  have  a  genuine  improvement  in  the  forms  of  religious 
expression,  or  whether  we  slip  into  emotionally  retrograde  religious 
expression,  depends,  thinks  the  author,  'upon  the  kind  of  people 
whose  spiritual  dilemmas  are  to  become  the  prevailing  standards  o'f 
value.'  The  influence  of  democratic  mediocrity  may  make  for  a  less 
worthy  type  of  religious  development.  The  rise  of  the  proletariat  to 
power  may  bring  with  it  considerable  upsetting  of  the  older  religious 
forms.  It  may  be  that  the  revolt  of  labor,  a  revolt,  not  so  much 
against  capitalism  as  against  the  mechanical  existence  imposed  on 
Jabor  by  modern  industrialism,  may  bring  in  its  turn  a  new  religious 
escape  [mark  that:  all  sorts  of  religion  are  but  escapes  from  reality; 
sensible  people  can  get  along  very  well  wthout  them,  thinks  the  au- 
thor and  reviewer  alike!]  from  the  standardized,  mechanical  world." 
Then  quotes  the  author:  It  is  possible  therefore  that  a  mass  return 
to  religion  as  a  form  of  escape  from  the  present  civilization  may  take 
the  form  of  a  revolution  in  which  the  unconscious  motive,  instead  of 
assuming  traditional  religious  symbols,  would  clothe  itself  in  the 
scientific  jargon  of  contemporary  economics. 

Which  means  that  the  Christian  religion  is  now  about 
dead,  and  the  coming  "revival  of  religion" — the  term  does 
not  imply  a  Christian  revival — may  be  an  up-springing  of 
organized  socialism,  which  makes  its  politics  its  only 
religion. 


III.    A  SINGULAR  SANDWICH 

The  foregoing  intimations  of  Darwinian  sociologists 
follow  by  some  fifty  pages  a  paper  by  Dr.  William  Louis 
Poteat,  President  of  Wake  Forest  College.  It  is  the  second 
of  the  lectures  delivered  to  the  students  of  our  State  Uni- 
versity by  him  as  McNair  lecturer  during  the  last  session. 
Apart  from  its  apologetic  feature  as  a  defense  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion  against  the  materialistic  science  of  our  day,  its 


23 


chief  feature  is  contempt  for  his  brethren  who  are  fund- 
amentalists. He  quotes  as  applicable  to  their  attitude  the 
bitter  words  of  Erasmus  spoken  of  the  opponents  of  human- 
ism: "By  identifying-  the  new  learning  with  heresy  you 
make  orthodoxy  synonymous  with  ignorance."  He  charges 
fundamentalists  with  teaching  a  system  of  metaphysics  in 
their  evangelistic  work,  and  thereby  driving  away  from  the 
church  all  who  do  not  understand  our  metaphysics.  He 
says: 

In  Christianity  God  and  the  enveloping  spirit  world  are  medi- 
ated to  our  apprehension  by  Christ,  and  toi  be  Christian  is  to  respond 
in  love  and  loyalty  to  the  appeal  of  Christ.  With  this  deep  and  in- 
scrutable experience  the  rationalism  of  orthodoxy  has  been  very  free 
and  very  sure.  You  must  do  sa  and  so,  and  you  must  accept  this  and 
that  intellectual  proposition;  you  must  understand  the  metaphysic 
of  "the  plan,"  or  you  cannot  become  a  Christian.  What  may  be  call- 
ed the  psychologj'  of  conversion  is  "explained"  at  such  length  that 
the  plain  man,  who  is  little  interested  in  metaphysics,  is  the  more 
confounded,  because  he  perceives  no  change  of  personal  attitude  to 
Christ,  even  though  he  gives  genuine  assent  to  th  proposition.  In- 
action follows  confusion,  and  Christian  interest  perishes  in  the  bag 
of  speculation. 

In  making  such  statements  before  a  large  body  of 
young  men,  Dr.  Poteat  has  done  a  grave  injury  to  many  of 
his  Christian  brethren.  It  is  not  true  that  all  funda- 
mentalists are  ignorant,  as  he  has  intimated,  nor  that  all  who 
are  "orthodox"  are  such  stupid  literalists  in  their  interpreta- 
tions of  Scripture  as  he  has  sought  to  make  it  appear.  Con- 
tempt for  conservative  Christian  thought  is  not  a  Christian 
temper,  and  young  men  imbued  with  it  are  not  at  all  likely 
to  be  attracted  toward  a  profession  of  faith  in  Christ.  Some 
of  us  have  made  it  our  business  for  fifty  years  to  keep  our- 
selves acquainted  with  the  discoveries  of  science,  and  to 
know  the  trend  of  scientific  thought  in  regard  to  religion. 
And  as  to  requiring  people  to  accept  our  metaphysics  be- 
fore we  consent  to  allow  them  to  count  themselves  Chris- 
tians, I  have  never  known  any  evangelist  of  any  denomina.*- 
tion  who  mixed  metaphysics  with  the  gospel,  demanding 
that  his  hearers  "accept  this  and  that  intellectual  proposi- 
tion." With  one  accord  they  have  preached  "repentance 
toward  God  and  faith  toward  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ."  I 
cannot  recall  one,  from  Dwight  L.  Moody  to  M.  F.  Harn, 
v/ho  set  forth  any  metaphysic  of  "the  plan."    Much  as  Dr. 


24 


Poteat  seems  to  despise  the  word,  there  is  a  "plan"  of  sal- 
vation, and  it  is  God's  plan,  and  not  man's.  Our  busines  is 
to  proclaim  it,  preaching  "the  Word,"  teaching  the  people 
out  of  the  Scriptures,  as  the  Master  did  and  as  His  apostles 
did. 

But  the  significant  thing  which  stands  out  in  the  very 
number  which  contains  Dr.  Poteat's  elegant  but  somewhat 
mixed  and  dubious  apologetic — mixed  and  dubious  because 
he  seems  quite  as  much  concerned  to  rouse  feelings  of  con- 
tempt tow^ard  fundamentalists  as  to  inculcate  faith  in  the 
Savior, — is  this :  That  while  our  learned  friend  fills  some 
nine  pages  with  his  effort  to  show  that  evolutionism  is  in 
harmony  with  the  Christian  faith,  some  seventeen  pa^es  of 
the  same  magazine  are  filled  by  writers — Messrs.  Hankins, 
Parshley,  Kimball  Young,  and  Bixler — who,  as  I  have 
shown  above  by  abundant  citations,  strive  to  argue  against 
the  existence  and  personality  of  God,  against  the  immortal- 
ity of  the  soul,  against  the  supernatural  alike  in  the  origin 
of  the  moral  law  and  in  religious  experience,  and  against 
historic  Christianity,  even  to  the  extent  of  casting  doubt 
upon  the  historicity  of  the  gospel  account  of  Jesus  and  the 
originality  of  the  Christian  message.  All  this  in  the  name 
of  evolutionary  science !  More  than  that,  one  of  these 
gentlemen  expressly  approves  the  "finding"  of  Bertrand 
Russell  that  religion — religion,  that  is,  of  every  type — ^has 
stultified  the  human  mind  and  hindered  the  development  of 
the  human  personality,  and  that  "traditional  morality" — 
which  means  the  Christian  code  of  morals — "is  too  largely 
compounded  of  superstitious  mandates  of  the  God,"  and 
the  opinion  of  Patten  that  the  "Non-Superstitious  Man,  who 
is  now  evolving  in  our  scientific  age,"  will  find  in  the  "pro- 
cesses and  values  of  life  itself"  and  "apart  from  imaginative 
conception  of  the  supernatural"  abundant  moral  guidance 
— "fundamental  rules  of  morality."  In  a  word,  religion  is 
a  thing  that  makes  men  fools,  and  as  if  to  cap  the  climax. 
Howard  Madison  Parshley  quotes  without  dissent  or  pro- 
test a  certain  writer's  approval  of  a  secret  vice,  which  has 
helped  to  fill  our  asylums  for  the  insane,  and  has  beyond 
question  caused  the  wreck  of  many  a  promising  career. 

What  a  religio-scientific  sandwich  we  have  here!    It  is 


25 


a  slice  of  "modernist"  religious  apologetics,  placed  between 
one  thin  and  three  very  thick  slices  of  scientific  infidelity. 

The  thin  slice  is  found  in  Dr.  L.  L,  Bernard's  article 
in  which  he  declares  that  the  Greek  philosophers  drove  "the 
gods"  out  of  the  universe,  that  Christianity  is  doomed,  and 
that  science  can  not  recognize  any  divine  or  supernatural 
purpose  in  nature,  or  in  social  development,  etc.,  etc. 

Dr.  Poteat  is  a  good  and  able  man,  but  he  is  in  bad 
company. 


IV.    A  QUESTION  FOR  NORTH  CAROLINA 

CHRISTIANS 

In  the  foregoing  pages  I  have  shown  the  patent  enmity 
toward  Christianity  displayed  by  sundry  contributors  to 
the  ''Jour^^l  o^*  Social  Forces."  I  have  demonstrated  that 
the  type  of  sociology  taught  by  such  men  is  not  only  anti- 
Christian  but  anti-religious.  While  the  March  number  of 
the  Journal  is  not  quite  as  noticeable  for  its  spirit  of  opposi- 
tion to  Christianity  as  the  two  previous  numbers,  the 
articles  of  Drs.  Bernard  and  Barnes,  not  to  speak  of  others, 
show  the  same  animus.  Bernard  tells  us  in  the  March  num- 
ber, page  538,  of  our  growing  emancipation,  from  ''tradi- 
tional repressions  and  controls,"  and  adds :  "We  have  freed 
ourselves  in  a  measure  from  the  tyranny  of  spirit  worship. 
If  now  we  can  escape  from  the  idols  of  the  crowd,  we  may 
begin  to  be  free  and  may  realize  something-  of  the  exhilara- 
tion of  spirit  in  creative  moral  relations,  which  Bateson 
claims  is  the  mental  realm  of  the  uninhibited  genius."  One 
of  the  idols  of  the  crowd  to  which  he  refers  is,  undoubtedly, 
our  respect  for  Christian  morality.  Mating  at  will,  with- 
out regard  to  "superstitious  mandates  of  the  Gods"  would 
be  a  "creative  moral  relation,"  in  the  opinion  of  such 
sociologists  as  Bernard  and  Barnes.  "Spirit  worship"  in- 
cludes, in  sociological  terminology,  the  worship  of  Him  of 
whom  Jesus  said,  "God  is  a  Spirit,  and  they  that  w^orship 
Him  must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  Russell 


26 


Gordon  Smith,  of  Columbia  University,  reviewing-  Miss 
Follett's  book  on  ''Creative  Experience,"  says: 

Suppose  one  grants  that  here  we  have  the  true  scientific  ex- 
position of  the  behavior  process,  and  then  looks  at  the  daily  activities 
of  human  beings,  at  tlie  interweaving  and  integrating  of  their  desires. 
Do  we  find  what  Miss  Follett 's  impassioned  prose  has  led  us  to  ex- 
pect? We  do  not.  We  find  what  Sumner  called  the  masses  and  what 
Mr.  Mencken  refers  to  somewhat  more  euphemistically  as  the  boobery, 
engrossed  in  the  activities  of  eating,  sleeping,  excreting,  reproducing, 
boot-legging,  cross-word  puzzling,  and  dying,  in  ways  more  or  less 
predetermined  by  the  cultural  crazy  quilt  in  which  they  becamei  en- 
tangled by  the  bloody  accident  of  birth."    Page  541. 

Here  is  a  distinct,  if  not  very  elegant,  intimation  that 
there  is  no  God  and  no  divine  providence.  The  masses  are 
involved  in  a  "cultural  crazy  quilt,"  and  birth  is  ''a  bloody 
accident." 

In  my  citations  from  the  May  number  above  given  I 
have  but  mentioned  Dr.  Bernard,  But  in  that  number,  on 
page  619,  he  tells  us  that  **in  the  nineteenth  century  the  last 
great  stand  of  both  theology  and  metaphysics  was  in  a  joint 
defense  against  the  aggressions  of  the  new  physical  and 
biological  sciences  ...  A  somewhat  similar,  though 
separate  and  weaker,  defense  is  now  being  made  in  the 
fields  of  the  mental  and  social  sciences  under  the  name  of 
Fundamentalism."  This  -intimates  quite  distinctly  that 
''science"  has  defeated  Christianity,  and  admits  that  science 
was  the  aggressor.  Also,  that  not  even  the  zeal  and  ability 
of  the  Fundamentalists  can  save  it  from  final  repudiation 
by  all  intelligent  men.  "Theology"  means  Christian  the- 
ology. Its  last  great  stand  was  made  in  the  last  century. 
What  is  being  done  now  by  Christian  apologetes  is  weak 
and  ineffective.  Christianity  is  doomed  to  become  extinct 
as  the  dodo!  Again,  he  tells  us,  (page  622)  that  "evolution 
in  the  abstract  and  as  an  objective  concept  of  continuity 
knows  nothing  of  progress  or  will  or  purpose  or  any  other 
anthropocentric  concepts  or  points  of  view.  To  assume 
such  a  standpoint  of  interpretation  is  to  read  into  the  pro- 
cesses themselves  personality  or  objective  and  self-existent 
principles  and  thus  reduce  them  to  the  categories  of  the- 
ological or  metaphysical  dogmas  or  doctrines."  Scientific 
sociology  must  not  admit  of  any  self-existent  prin- 
ciple.   It  must  have  nothing  to  do  wnth  either  theology  or 


27 


metaphysics.  Both  of  these  sciences — pseudo-sciences  they 
are,  in  the  opinion  of  such  men — affirm  that  there  is  a  self- 
existent  Being,  Who  is  usually  spoken  of  as  God.  But 
scientific  sociology  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  this  "dog- 
ma.''   I  could  multiply  citations,  but  these  must  suffice. 

Thus  we  find  that  in  a  magazine  issued  under  the 
auspices  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina,  currency  is 
given  to  the  views  of  men  who  despise  the  very  words 
"orthodoxy,"  ''theology,"  "metaphysics,"  and  "dogma."  By 
"metaphysics,"  as  we  have  said,  they  mean  that  view  of 
mental  science  which  regards  the  soul  as  a  spiritual  entity, 
distinct  and  separable  from  the  body.  By  ''dogma"  they 
m.ean  any  doctrine  which  the  church  considers  settled  by 
the  Word  of  God.  Divine  revelation,  the  divinity  of  Christ, 
the  virgin  birth  of  the  Savior,  the  resurrection  of  Christ  and 
of  mankind  at  the  end  of  the  age — these  and  other  Chris- 
tian doctrines  are  "dogmas,"  or  theological  "concepts"  with 
which  science  will  have  nothing  to  do.  These  gentlemen 
propose  to  re-organize  society  on  the  basis  of  a  new  code 
of  morals  to  be  provided  by  science,  and  in  order  to  this 
they  propose  to  emancipate  the  race  from  all  "fear  of  the 
living  or  the  dead."  We  are  informed  that  the  "Non- 
Superstitious  Man  who  is  now  evolving"  will  need  no  re- 
ligion, and  that  the  only  people  who  do  need  one  are 
"neurotic  and  mildly  psycopathic  persons," — weak-minded, 
half  crazy  people. 

In  view  of  these  facts,  I  submit  this  question  to  the 
trustees  and  faculty,  and  alumni  of  the  University,  and  to 
the  people  of  the  State  of  North  Carolina :  Should  not  the 
faculty  and  trustees  of  our  University  prevent  the  purvey- 
ing of  such  bald  infidelity  in  a  publication  issued  under  the 
auspices  and  edited  by  profesors  of  the  institution?  Shall 
we  consent  to  allow  the  prestige  of  our  University  to  be 
employed  in  the  popularization  of  agnosticism  and  material- 
ism? 

I  have  written  no  word  in  criticism  of  the  University. 
What  I  have  condemned  is  the  policy  of  the  editors  of  the 
Journal  of  Social  Forces,  which,  as  a  prominent  minister 
writes  me,  "is  an  insult  to  the  intelligence  and  to  the  moral 


28 


and  religious  convictions  of  our  people."  Already  they 
have  purveyed  to  their  thousands  of  readers  in  four  suc- 
cessive numbers  articles  that  have  assailed  the  fundamental 
verities  of  the  Christian  faith.  During  the  same  period 
they  gave  space  to  but  one  article  favoring  Christianity — 
Dr.  Poteat's.  The  continuance  of  such  a  policy  will  not 
fail  to  injure  greatly  the  University  itself  as  wtW  as  the 
cause  of  evangelical  Christianity.  Well  is  it  to  count  the 
search  for  truth  the  great  object  of  the  University,  but  when 
this  search  proceeds  upon  the  assumption  that  nothing  in 
the  sphere  of  religion  is  settled — that  Christianity  itself  is 
to  be  considered  a  mere  temporary  system,  w^hich,  in  the 
process  of  ''evolution"  is  to  give  way  to  a  better  religion 
or  to  none  at  all  as  the  high  priests  of  Holy  Science  shall 
determine — then,  in  the  name  of  my  Lord,  I  protest  against 
such  prostitution  of  the  agencies,  the  prestige  and  the  im- 
primatur of  an  institution  which,  for  more  than  a  century- 
and-a-quarter,  has  been  standing  for  the  religion  and  the 
morality  of  the  Bible. 


ADDENDUM 


I.    THE  REAL  CHINAMAN  IN  OUR  MIDST,  AND 
HIS  AMAZING  DISCOVERY 

Under  the  above  title  the  writer  published  in  the  Char- 
lotte Observer  a  partial  review  of  an  article  by  Judge  R.  W. 
Winston,  published  with  editorial  commendation  in  the  No- 
vember (1924)  number  of  the  Journal  of  Social  Forces.  The 
following  is  a  synopsis  of  Judge  Winston's  paper: 

Fifty  years  ago  when  sea  and  rocks  were  only  partially 
explored  and  yet  enough  had  been  uncovered  to  disprove 
our  childhood  myths,  the  age  of  the  world,  the  creation  of 
Adam  and  Eve,  Noah's  Flood  and  the  like  .  .  .  this  ques- 
tion was  addressed  by  Robert  Ingersoll  to  William  E.  Glad- 
stone :  '*How  can  the  neck  of  orthodoxy  escape  the  noose 
of  Darwin?"  .  .  .  Theology  and  tradition  have  fared 
badly  since  Darwin  and  others  began  to  lay  bare  the  secrets 


29 


of  nature;  but  religion,  the  right  relation  of  man  to  God,  is, 
I  submit,  more  firmly  fixed  than  ever.  The  array  of  evi- 
dence .  .  .  established  the  theory  of  evolution  as  firmly 
as  the  theory  of  gravitation.  Christians  should  investigate 
so  stubborn  a  fact  before  wagering  their  al  on  its  falsity. 
It  really  confirms  one's  faith  in  God. 

Darwin  did  not. deal  with  the  origin  of  life,  but  wath  the 
origin  of  species.  Prevailing  opinion  today  is  that  we  do 
not  know  anything  about  the  origin  of  life.  The  confidence 
of  those  who  believe  that  the  life-process  is  material,  and 
that  the  spiritual  is  a  myth — ^that  there  is  no  First  Cause — • 
seems  to  have  passed  away.  Darwin  made  use  of  God  as 
the  Creator  of  life.  After  that  one  divine  event  God  ap- 
parently disappeared  from  the  earth  and  its  affairs  and  has 
not  since  re-appeared.  Biology  to  some  extent  confirms 
the  faith  of  the  Christian  idealist  that  God  is  in  the  very 
atom,  since  biologists  declare  that  "even  the  amoeba  is  no 
fool."  LaPlace  thought  the  hypothesis  of  God  was  not 
necessary.  Prof.  Conklin  found  greater  evidences  of  the 
omnipotence,  omnipresence  and  omniscience  of  an  Infinite 
Being  in  evolution  than  in  creation  itself.  Darwin  himself 
did  not  believe  in  blind  chance.  Darwin's  view  was  not  in 
disharmony  with  the  God  of  Jesus. 

Scientists  admit  that  the  missing  links  are  still  missing. 
Yet  ''how  ennobling  the  concept  of  evolution:  the  atom; 
the  indwelling  spirit;  the  struggle;  the  ascending  scale; 
millions  upon  millions  of  intervening  years ;  man  and  his 
plaything  world ;  death  another  name  for  life;  back  again 
to  God."  Galileo,  Bacon,  Franklin,  Newton,  all  denounced 
because  of  their  discoveries.  Anaesthetics  opposed.  Geology 
pronounced  "a  dark  art,  dangerous,"  etc.  Christians  have 
forsaken  the  Bible  Sabbath,  yet  in  North  Carolina  a  boy 
may  be  put  in  jail  for  caddying  on  the  first  day  of  the  week. 
Contest  today  is  between  religion  of  authority  and  religion 
of  reason  and  science.  Thousands  of  pious  persons,  mostl}^ 
women,  would  in  a  church  of  authority  attain  perfect  emo- 
tional equilibrium.  As  things  are  they  are  not  at  peace. 
"Old-time  religion,  the  revival,  outpourings  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  Pentecostal  days  are  gone — and  the  saints  are  not 
happy."    Scientific  thought  once  displaced  by  bigotry  and 


30 


superstition — now  both  natural  and  spiritual  processes  are 
understood  as  growth.  Orthodoxy  must  accept  evolution 
oi  else  plant  itself  upon  the  miraculous,  the  impossible. 

What  has  science  left?  God,  the  Jesus  of  John;  the 
four  gospels  and  the  epistles  of  Paul ;  the  life-process,  our- 
selves being  of  the  process;  the  fruits  of  Christian  idealism 
— truth,,  goodness,  beauty ;  and  the  hope  of  a  life  to  come. 
Under  this  banner  all  nations  may  enlist  in  a  search  for 
truth.  Teachers  assure  us  that  the  Far  East  is  awake  to  a 
larger  Christianity;  that  synthesizing  our  best  and  their 
best,  appealing  to  Japanese  and  Chinese  in  a  spirit  of  sym- 
pathy, is  better  than  the  old  way — pity  and  condescension, 

I  do  believe  in  God,  that  he 

Made  heaven  and  earth,  and  you  and  me; 

Nay,  I  believe  in  all  the  host 

Of  Gods  from  Jesus  down  to'  Joss, 

But  honor  best  and  reverence  most 

That  guileless  God  Who  bore  the  cross. 

May  we  not  thank  Darwin  for  a  theory  of  life  which 
has  broadened  and  humanized  knowledge  and  dignified  the 
concept  of  God? 

Remarking  on  the  above,  I  called  attention  to  the  fact 
that  a  Chinaman  sees  no  inconsistency  in  professing  any 
number  of  contradictory  religions.  The  poetical  creed  of 
Judge  Winston  seems  to  mark  him  as  ''the  Mongol  in  our 
midst,"  for  this  is  precisely  what  he  has  done,  proposing  to 
accept  ''all  the  Gods  from  Jesus  down  to  Joss." 

And  what  a  discovery  he  has  made!  Science  has  junk- 
ed the  whole  Bible  except  the  four  gospels  and  the  epistles 
of  Paul,  and  has  cut  the  miracles  out  of  these.  And  this 
information  comes  to  us  in  a  scientific  magazine  under  the 
imprimatur  of  our  great  University.  Can  it  be  true  in- 
formation ? 


II.    "THE  CREED  AND  PROGRAM  OF 

MODERN  SOCIOLOGY" 

Under  this  caption  I  published  citations  from  the  articles 
of  Drs.  Bernard  and  Barnes  in  the  January  number  of  the 
Journal  of  Social  Forces.  My  paper  appeared  in  the  Biblical 
Recorder,  the  Presbyterian   Standard  and  the  Charlotte 


31 


Sunday  Observer.  It  brought  out  the  following-  points,  all 
being  attested  by  abundant  citations : 

I.  The  Creed  of  a  Modem  Sociologist 

1.  All  go'ds  and  devils  were  the  creations  of  the  human  imagina- 
tion. 

2.  There  never  has  been  any  divine  revelation  of  God's  will  to 
man,  and  never  will  be. 

3.  No  extant  moral  code,  not  even  that  derived  from  the  Bible, 
possesses  divine  authority.    Jesus  was  merely  a  religious  reformer. 

4.  The  Christian's  hope  of  heaven  is  based  on  a  myth,  ''the 
myth  of  reinstatement." 

5.  The  fall  of  mankind  was  mythical — ''the  myth  of  regression." 

6.  Conscience  is  nothing  more  than,  the  product  of  group  opinion. 

7.  Christianity  errs  as  to  the  basic  purpose  of  moral  conduct. 

8.  Current  Christian  and  Jewish  teaching  as  to  purity  and 
modesty  is  all  wrong.  "Our  sex  mores  go  back  to  primitive  mystic- 
ism and  superstition,"  and  to  the  Jewish  mores,  where  there  was 
developed  that  pernicious  concept,  "naked  and  ashamed." 

9.  Christianity  has  degraded  woman,  assigned  her  a  lower  posi- 
tion than  she  occupied  in  pagan  Greece,  and  has  retarded  human 
progress. 

10.  The  world  today  has  no  true  code  of  morals  and  must  look 
to  science  alone  to  supply  one. 

II.  The  Program  of  Modern  Sociology 

1.  To  provide  the  world  with  a  scientific  code  of  morals, 

2.  To  assure  the  world  that  the  acceptance  of  such  a  scientific 
code  of  conduct)  would  not  endanger  any  man's  spiritual  prospects,  or 
"prevent  his  rapid  and  successful  translation  to  the  empyrean  area." 

3.  To  convince  the  world  that  "Super-hygiene"  is  a  sufficient 
savior  and  go'd. 

4.  If  the  ideals  of  Jesus  are  allowed  any  place  in  the  new  code, 
it  will  not  be  because  they  are  considered  as  in  any  sense  "the  pro- 
duct of  special  and  unique  revelation." 

5.  The  new  code  must  allow  larger  liberty  of  moral  action  to 
men  of  genius. 

6.  The  new  code  will  correct  the  low  ideals  of  current  Christian 
teaching. 

7.  The  new  code  will  supercede  all  moral  teaching  by  the  church. 

8.  The  new  code  will  be  tentative  and  will  be  continually  re- 
vised as  science  may  point  the  way. 

9.  The  new  code  will  restore  to  mankind  the  ideals  of  Greek 
paganism.  ' '  With  the  possible  exception  of  the  teachings  of  Con- 
fucius," the  ancient  Greeks  had  the  best  ideals  man  has  yet  known. 

From  all  which  it  appears  that  sociology  of  the  Darwinian  type 
proposes  to  overthrow  the  Church  of  Christ  and  Christian  civilization, 
introduce  "pluralism"  by  law,  introduce  the  methods  of  scientific 
stock-breeding  for  the  improvement  of  the  human  breed,  do  away  with 
prohibition  altogether,  and  bring  back  into  the  world  all  "the  glory 
that  was  Greece." 

NOTE — It  is  due  the  faculty  of  the  University  of  North  Carolina 
to  say  that  the  Dr.  Bernard  quoted  above  is  professor  in  the  Uni- 
versity of  Minnesota,  and  that  Dr.  Harry  Elmer  Barnes  is  professor 
in  Smith  College,  Northampton,  Mass. 


32 


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Burlington,  N.  C. 


51.  c.     204    Z99M    v.l  372436 
Nos. I-IS 


IMI.-  Religious  Paaiphlets 


CALL  NUMBER 

Vol. 

Date  (for  periodical) 

Copy  No.    

N.C.     204    Z99M    v.l  37345 

"OS. 1-18 


